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A Solution to the Trouble in Damask

Submitted by AKQGuy on Thu, 2011-07-07 01:31

As planned, I called the yarn shop I bought the Great Adirondack Yarn Co product from in Cheyenne. The owner was very helpful though stumped in regards to what was happening to the yarn. For those of you who don't know what I'm blathering about, I had bought a 990yrd skein of Bamboo Fingering weight yarn that was a 4 ply 51% bamboo, 49% cotton yarn. It was literally disintegrating on the needles. See previous post for more details... Basically I was wondering if anyone else had such issues with it.

So, the shop owner Penny was as you would hope a shop owner to be. She offered to hold another skein for me to pickup on my way through to the retreat next week. I thanked her and told her I was also going to call the yarn company. Which I did.

Before I had gotten into the whole thing, she stopped me and informed me that last year they were asked to sample a new fabric softener for their products. After they had used it and sold much of their product they discovered that it was, her words, I swear, “Disintegrating organic fibers”. She pulled up when the yarn store had bought their product and confirmed this was an affected batch. Then offered me to mail her the skein and she would send me back a replacement skein.

Ahhh… I’m not crazy. I knit just fine. And after nearly a decade of knitting, I have not been doing it all wrong. And to boot, I had two positive interactions with vendors. That, with what has been happening locally, was a perfect beginning to my day. I just felt the need to comment on the silver lining to my dark little cloud over Damask. In fact, it blew that little storm eastward and left me with a sunny afternoon to walk the dogs on before I headed to work.

Wow! I'm amazed that they would even continue to sell the product knowing it to be defective. Of course, it's all about the money... they don't want to take a loss, of course, so they expect YOU to pay for their mistakes. I've been finding so much of this going on lately, and they will get away with it just because most people don't know enough to complain about it.

I'm glad you stuck with it, and contacted the vendor, who was big enough to admit they made a mistake with that product. She must be new -- I would find it hard to believe a more seasoned owner to admit she sold inferior product! Good for you. Now to continue on with this project... or are you going to start over? I don't think that earlier knitting is going to hold up much longer, would it?

Considering I, nor you know any of the details as to how this little problem came to light, I find your comments regarding this vendor unsettling. I can say that in my conversation with her that she was honestly apologetic and upset that I had to deal with this. I suspect that a small company maybe doesn't have the records or resources to track down all the items that may have been affected by 5 gallons worth of fabric softener (Considering my experience with such products, these go a very long way). That or the very fact that some of their product may have been more affected than others and for small company this would have been a HUGE blow to their bottom line. Yes, their bottom line, they are the Great Adirondack Yarn COMPANY and in the end, good business does come down to being all about the money.

The product that caused this problem was a "demo" to see if it would work for them, and considering that and the fact that they hadn't purchased it, I doubt they had much in the way to try to get compensated for the damages made to their own line of products. The point I'm making is, crap happens. This time, I and two companies were affected by said crap. But when I contacted both companies they both tried to make the situation right for the customer, and I'm appreciative of that. I posted the follow up item mainly for those that posted thoughts on what was happening with the original posting, and for anyone else among this group that may get affected.